Crossover Cover: Strange Incursions

 

This chapbook contains two stories by Jason Scott Aiken.

"The Blood of Raizor" is set in 11,550 BCE. In Northeast Africa, the lion Raizor and his sons, Tyton and Rohrdeth, battle a leopard-like alien. Raizor is killed, but his sons are changed by devouring the flesh of their foe. Tyton finds himself invulnerable, possessing more powerful claws, and unaging. In Nemea, he is slain by Heracles. Rohrdeth and his descendants possess a golden hide and enhanced intelligence and senses. The alien is of the same race as Coeurl from A. E. van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer.” According to Philip José Farmer’s Time’s Last Gift, Heracles was really John Gribardsun, an immortal time traveler from the future. One of Rohrdeth’s descendants will have a connection to Gribardsun.

In "Galazi in the Enchanted City," Galazi the Wolf investigates the murders of three members of his tribe of “ghost-wolves,” not far from the village of the People of the Axe, led by his friend Umslopogaas. Galazi sees a baobab tree that bears the images of the so-called demons of Lake Tanganyika: Loubari, Mgoussa, and Mousammouria. Galazi is captured and taken to a temple whose roof bears a grey stone sphere with a winged marble woman atop it. He is brought before Queen Touloumia of Mkinyaga. Long ago, the capital of Touloumia’s nation, Akribanza, was just one of a hundred cities in the vast empire of Kôr. A cavern wall bears the image of a man with a knife and a bow. The witch Nomma receives visions from the waters of a crystal basin. Among these visions are a muscular bronze-skinned youth breaking a leopard’s back, a bronze-skinned swordsman and a bearded giant battling soldiers, another bronze-skinned young man and a one-eyed dwarf, a white man wielding a cat-headed staff, a giant looking much like the earlier one battling what appears to be an older version of Umslopogaas, and a black warrior wielding the same type of sword as the bronzed swordsman fighting alongside a grey-haired white man and a robed bronze-skinned man battling beastly creatures near a giant crystalline stalk. Galazi the Wolf is from H. Rider Haggard’s Nada the Lily. Umslopogaas appears in not only that book, but the Allan Quatermain series as well. Loubari, Mgoussa, Mousammouria, and Queen Touloumia are from Eugène Hennebert’s The Enchanted City. The statue of the winged woman is a symbol of Truth seen in Haggard’s She and Philip José Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey’s The Song of Kwasin. Kôr is the city ruled by Ayesha, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. The man with the knife and bow is Sahhindar from Farmer’s Khokarsa series. Sahhindar is also the immortal time traveler John Gribardsun from Farmer’s Time’s Last Gift, but he is best known as the lord of the apes. The crystal basin is from Haggard’s She and Allan. The bronze-skinned youth is King Minruth from the Ancient Opar books in his younger years. The bronze-skinned swordsman and the bearded giant are Hadon of Opar and his cousin Kwasin from the Ancient Opar series. The other bronze-skinned young man is Hadon’s son Kohr, while the one-eyed dwarf is Paga, whom Farmer meant to be Pag from Haggard’s Allan and the Ice-Gods. The white man with the cat-headed staff is Robert E. Howard’s Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane. The battle between Umslopogaas and the bearded giant Rezu (whose description is identical to Kwasin’s, whose fate is left open-ended at the end of The Song of Kwasin) is depicted in She and Allan. The black warrior, N’desi, is from Carey and Win Scott Eckert’s “Iron and Bronze.” The grey-haired man is Hareton Ironcastle from J.-H. Rosny Aîné’s Hareton Ironcastle’s Amazing Adventure, adapted and translated by Farmer as Ironcastle. The bronze man is Doc Ardan from Guy d’Armen’s Doc Ardan: City of Gold and Lepers, who Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier’s translation identified with a certain bronze-skinned doctor and crimefighter. The beastly creatures are the Wandarobo from John Peter Drummond’s Ki-Gor pulp stories, who Carey and Eckert implied to be exiles from Opar, originally from the Tarzan novels. The crystalline stalk is an extension of the mineral-vegetable-king from Ironcastle, and related to the Crystal Tree of Time from Farmer’s Tarzan and the Dark Heart of Time.

These crossovers are two of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2! 

Crossover of the Week

Spring 1966

THE REVELATION OF THE YETI 

In Africa, Doctor Omega asks Barton Werper if he’s ever been to Vulcan. Werper says their guide is Robert John Kilgore, aka Ki-Gor, and that his biographical subject is the most famous Jungle Lord, but there were earlier ones in India, such as Mowgli. The Doctor mistakenly refers to Ki-Gor as “John-Gor.” Ki-Gor describes Werper’s father, Lt. Werper of the Belgian Army, as almost as poor of an abuser of the native peoples of Africa as that ivory trader in the Congo. Accompanying them on their search for the Yeti is Nora the Ape-Woman. The Doctor recalls meeting two other animal-human hybrids, Paula Dupree and Felifax. Ki-Gor once found a lost Egyptian civilization called Memphre which some say is, like Opar or Kor, one of the lost colonies of Karkosa. Ki-Gor says some claim that vile cults lurk at their destination of a kind unseen since the days of Solomon Kane. Werper remembers some of the names of the beings presumably worshipped by these cults, such as Cthulhu, Azathoth, and Dagon, members of the Great Old Ones. Doctor Omega tells his traveling companions about the Tcho-Tcho. Nora heard about the Jermyn family in the Congo. Through a dimensional shift, they find themselves on the Plateau of Leng. Nora identifies some runes as written in Aklo. According to the Doctor the Yeti are called the Mi-Go on Pluto, where they serve Yog-Sothoth. Omega speculates that a door he sees is a spatial portal, an artifact of the Ancients. A quartet of sorcerers consists of Doctor Karswell; Madame Palmyre, who worships an entity called Baal; Cristaldi, a Mexican warlock who once fought Dracula; and the Master, who worships a god called Manos. The Doctor is puzzled on hearing the Master’s name. 

Short story by Atom Mudman Bezecny in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 12: Carte Blanche, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2015; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 22), Jean-Marc Lofficier, ed., Rivière Blanche, 2018. Doctor Omega is from Arnould Galopin’s titular novel; Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier’s adaptation and translation identified him with the Doctor from the television series Doctor Who. Vulcan is from the Doctor Who serial “The Power of the Daleks.” The Doctor’s archenemy is his fellow Time Lord the Master. “Barton Werper” was the nom de plume used by Peter and Peg Scott for a series of unauthorized Tarzan novels in the 1960s. Robert Kilgour (spelled “Kilgore” here), aka Ki-Gor, appeared in tales by John Murray Reynolds and various authors using the pen name “John Peter Drummond” in the pulp Jungle Stories. Memphre is from the Ki-Gor tales. Mowgli is from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Jongor is the hero of a series of novels by Robert Moore Williams. Lt. Werper is from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. The ivory trader in the Congo is Kurtz from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Nora the Ape-Woman is the title character of Félicien Champsaur’s novel. Paula Dupree is from the movies Captive Wild Woman, Jungle Woman, and The Jungle Captive. Felifax is from Paul Féval, fils’ Felifax, the Tiger-Man. Kor is from H. Rider Haggard’s She novels. “Karkosa” is a reference to the kingdom of Khokarsa from Philip José Farmer’s novels of Ancient Opar. Farmer meant Khokarsa to be the same location described in Ambrose Bierce’s “An Inhabitant of Carcosa.” Solomon Kane is Robert E. Howard’s Puritan adventurer. The Great Old Ones, including Cthulhu, Azathoth, Dagon, and Yog-Sothoth, and the Plateau of Leng are from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The Tcho-Tcho are from August Derleth’s contributions to the Mythos. The Jermyns are from Lovecraft’s “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family.” The Aklo language is from Arthur Machen’s “The White People”; Lovecraft later used it in “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Haunter of the Dark.” The Mi-Go are from Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness.” Craig Hinton’s Millennial Rites identified the Great Intelligence from the Doctor Who serial “The Abominable Snowmen” with Yog-Sothoth. The Ancients are from the movie Stargate and its television spin-offs. Karswell is from M. R. James’ “Casting the Runes.” Madame Palmyre and Baal are from Renée Dunan’s Baal. Cristaldi is from the movie Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolf Man. The Master (not the Doctor’s foe) and Manos are from the movie Manos: The Hands of Fate.  

This crossover write-up is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

Winter 2011

BLOOD AND MAGICK 

Occult bounty hunter Deacon Chalk must protect three weredog children from a trio of witches known as the Wrath of Baphomet. One of the witches, Athame, summons a “soulsword” by casting a spell backward. Deacon and his allies confront another of the witches, Ahriman, at a movie theatre: “Tiff and I had seen Guilty Pleasures here a month ago. We had both liked it. Hollywood had taken some liberties and picked their Jean-Claude based on star power instead of acting, but they were spot-on in their choice to play Anita. She probably didn’t agree, but I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her since it had been released.” An earlier incarnation of the coven included a Russian warlock called Chernobog, who was killed by a Puritan named Solomon Kane who later went to Africa. Deacon tells were-rabbit Josh about his current exploit, and Josh replies, “Just another Tuesday night in Sunnydale?” Deacon’s friend Kat shows him a prophecy about the witches in the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, written in Kandarian. Deacon’s ally Father Mulcahy gives him Durendal, the sword of Roland, and claims the Holy See has Excalibur. 

Novel by James R. Tuck, Kensington Books, 2012. The soulsword may be a reference to the sword of the same name wielded by Illyana Rasputina, aka Magik, a member of the Marvel Comics mutant superteams the X-Men and the New Mutants. If so, this is the CU version of the sword. Casting spells backward is the preferred method of magic for DC Comics’ mystic heroine Zatanna Zatara, and her father Giovanni “John” Zatara before her. Anita is Laurell K. Hamilton’s vampire hunter Anita Blake, while Jean-Claude, a vampire himself, is one of her love interests. Guilty Pleasures was the title of the first Blake novel. Although the Anita Blake novels take place in a world where the public is aware that the supernatural is real, various sources, such as the first Deacon Chalk novel, Blood and Bullets, establish that a version of Anita exists in the CU distinct from Hamilton’s version. Solomon Kane is Robert E. Howard’s Puritan adventurer. While the mention of Sunnydale (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) could be interpreted as a pop culture reference, Blood and Bullets establishes that Buffy is a contemporary of Deacon Chalk, so it is more likely a genuine crossover. The Necronomicon Ex Mortis and the Kandarian language are from the Evil Dead films. Durendal and Roland are from French epic literature. Excalibur has appeared in several CU texts. Its status and location vary from story to story; for instance, in The Librarian TV movies and the subsequent series The Librarians, the Library has the sword, which Flynn Carsen calls Cal. Perhaps someday a dedicated creative mythographer will reconcile the myriad, seemingly conflicting takes on Arthurian lore in the CU. 

This crossover write-up is only one of hundreds which will be included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are official and AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

December 25, 2003
DR. DOA 
Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf go after the assassin known as Dr. DOA, who has poisoned Eddie. Appearing or mentioned are: the Wood Between the Worlds; Strangefellows bar, in the Nightside; the Walking Man; the Adventurers Club; Shadows Fall; the Unholy Grail; Baron Frankenstein; Castle Frankenstein; Dead Boy; Larry Oblivion; the Ghost Finders; tanna leaf; a woman with something moving inside her back; a woman smoking a cigarette through a hole in her throat; Cthulhu; Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar; Black Heir; Persecution Psmith; the Necronomicon; the Book of Eibon; the Mysteries of the Wurm; Harry Fabulous; Dorian Gray; Martian red weed; MI Thirteen; a Maltese falcon; the Organization; the Hydra’s teeth; and Hadleigh Oblivion. 
Novel by Simon R. Green. The Wood Between the Worlds is from C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew. Strangefellows bar, the Walking Man, the Adventurers Club, the Unholy Grail, Dead Boy, Larry and Hadleigh Oblivion, and Harry Fabulous are from Green’s Nightside series. Shadows Fall is from Green’s novel of the same name. Baron Frankenstein and Castle Frankenstein are from Mary Shelley’s novel. The Ghost Finders are the subject of another series of novels by Green. Tanna leaves are from Universal Studios’ Mummy film series. The woman with something moving inside her back is Karen Tandy from Graham Masterson’s novel The Manitou. The thing inside her back is Misquamacus, originally from August Derleth’s The Lurker at the Threshold. The woman smoking through a hole in her throat may be Juno from the movie Beetlejuice. Cthulhu, shoggoths, the Necronomicon, the Book of Eibon and the Mysteries of the Wurm are from the Cthulhu Mythos. Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar is from Neil Gaiman’s story of the same name. Black Heir and the Organization are from Green’s Ishmael Jones Mysteries series. Persecution Psmith, an immortal Puritan adventurer, is a thinly veiled version of Robert E. Howard’s Puritan hero Solomon Kane. Matthew Baugh also portrayed Kane as long-lived in his story “The Heart of the Moon.” Dorian Gray is from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Martian red weed is from H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. MI Thirteen is the CU version of the British intelligence organization of the same name in the Marvel Comics Universe. The Maltese Falcon is from Dashiell Hammett’s classic detective novel. The Hydra’s teeth are from the movie Jason and The Argonauts. 
This write-up is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, to be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

May 25–September 23, 1882

MERKABAH RIDER: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEIRD WEST

The Merkabah Rider and his allies set forth to at long last prevent the Hour of Incursion, in which the Great Old Ones will be unleashed upon the world. Appearing or mentioned are: the Dreamlands; the Liber Damnatus Damnationum; Delirium Tremens; the Scroll of Thoth; Misquamacus; Azathoth; Faustus Montague; an African witch-doctor; a Christian adventurer; the Drucker and Dobbs Mining Company; Professor Spates; Miskatonic University; Arkham; Warren Rice; the Tsath-yo language; New Valusia; Yoth; Yig; Tsathoggua; the Elder Sign; Nyarlathotep (aka the Abhorred Dread); Ossadagowah; Stallions’ Gate; the Book of Zylac; the Cold Ones; Shub-Niggurath; the Star Stones of Mnar; Pnakotus; the flying polyps; the Aklo language; Picaro Jake Gonnoff; the Hyperboreans; the Black Lotus; a barefoot man, possibly a Chinaman, playing a bamboo flute; Dunn & Duffy; the Flying Graysons; Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show; Noah Whateley; Yog-Sothoth; Dunwich; the shoggoth; Zorro; Gallo del Cielo; Slim Reezer; Jesse McLaughlin; Oscar Diggs; Richard Wilkins III; Lin McAdams; High Spade; Freddie Sykes; Dog Kelly; John Russell; an “electricista y aventurero”; Danny Caine; a masked gunman; the Pnakotic Manuscripts; the Seven Books of Hsan; the History of G’harne; the Naacal language; and the Elder Script.

Novel by Edward M. Erdelac, Damnation Books, 2013. The Great Old Ones, the Dreamlands, Azathoth, Miskatonic University, Arkham, Warren Rice, Yig, the Elder Sign, Shub-Niggurath, Pnakotus, the Great Race of Yith, the flying polyps, Yog-Sothoth, Dunwich, the shoggoth, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, and the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan are from the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. Nyarlathotep is also from Lovecraft’s Mythos; Erdelac conflates him with Sauron (aka the Abhorred Dread) from J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings. The Tsath-yo and Naacal languages are from Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price’s “Through the Gates of the Silver Key.” Yoth is from Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop’s “The Mound.” The Aklo language originally appeared in Arthur Machen’s “The White People,” and was also used by Lovecraft in his stories “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Haunter of the Dark.” Noah Whateley is meant to be Old Whateley from “The Dunwich Horror”; his first name was given as Noah in the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. The Liber Damnatus Damnationum is from Richard L. Tierney’s Mythos novel The House of the Toad. The Scroll of Thoth is from Tierney’s tales of Simon of Gitta. The town of Delirium Tremens appears in several works by Erdelac, including the film Meaner Than Hell. Picaro Jake Gonnoff is also from Meaner Than Hell. Misquamacus, Ossadagowah, and the Star Stones of Mnar are from August Derleth’s short novel The Lurker at the Threshold; here, Misquamacus is conflated with the Blue Wizard Rómestámo from The Lord of the Rings. Faustus Montague is meant to be Rómestámo’s fellow Blue Wizard Morinehtar. The Christian adventurer is Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane, while the African witch-doctor is Kane’s ally N’Longa. New Valusia is named after the kingdom of Valusia from Howard’s King Kull stories. The Black Lotus is from Howard’s stories of the barbarian Conan and police detective Steve Harrison. The Drucker and Dobbs Mining Company alludes to gold prospector Fred C. Dobbs from B. Traven’s novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and its film adaptation; since both versions of the story take place in the 1920s, the Dobbs who co-owns the mining company must be a relative of Fred’s. Professor Spates is based on a reference to “Spates’ catalog” in the movie Ghostbusters. Tsathoggua, Zylac, the Cold Ones, the Hyperboreans, and the Elder Script appear in fiction by Clark Ashton Smith. Stallions’ Gate, New Mexico is from the television series Quantum Leap. The Book of Zylac (aka The Wisdom and Sacred Magic of Zylac the Mage) appears in Cthulhu Mythos fiction by Joseph S. Pulver. The barefoot Chinaman is Kwai Chang Caine from the television series Kung Fu; Danny Caine is his older half-brother. The Dunn & Duffy Combined Circus is from the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The Flying Graysons are a family of acrobats that died out in the 1940s when young Dick Grayson’s parents were murdered, resulting in his adoption by Batman and becoming the first Robin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show is from Ray Bradbury’s novel Something Wicked This Way Comes. It is worth noting Green Town, Illinois, the setting of Something Wicked This Way Comes, is also the town in which Bradbury’s books Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer, and Summer Morning, Summer Night take place. Gallo del Cielo is from Tom Russell’s song of the same name, as is Zorro. Both are roosters, and therefore this Zorro is no relation to any of the many heroes that have used that name. Slim Reezer and Jesse McLaughlin are from the movie House II: The Second Story. “Electricista y aventurero” is Spanish for “electrician and adventurer,” which is how the character Bill Towner describes himself in House II. Oscar Diggs is better known as the Wizard of Oz. The immortal Richard Wilkins III is the Mayor of Sunnydale, California on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Lin McAdams and High Spade are from the film Winchester ’73. Freddie Sykes is from the film The Wild Bunch. Dog Kelly is from Sam Raimi’s Western The Quick and the Dead. John Russell is from the film Hombre. The masked gunman is the Lone Ranger. The History of G’Harne (aka the G’harne Fragments) appears in Cthulhu Mythos fiction by Brian Lumley.

Crossover Cover: Savage Dawn

The Outlanders series, written by various authors under the pseudonym “James Axler,” is set in a future incompatible with the one seen in the Star Trek franchise. This particular novel is by Douglas P. Wojtowicz. Kondo says of a subterranean empire filled with dinosaurs, “It’s amazing that no one has ever stumbled upon it.” Remus replies, “Some have. But the tales were so astounding that those who lived in the world above relegated them to flights of fancy, instead of the true exploits of men such as George Edward Challenger or David Innes.” Besides this reference, Wojtowicz's Wings of Death establishes that one of the series' main characters, Kane, is the reincarnation of Solomon Kane.

Crossover Covers: Death's Dark Riders